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One of the most pressing problems silicon and software designers face today is the rising design costs they face at each new process node going forward. These costs have an impact on the number of 1st time System-on-a-Chip (SoC) designs and the resultant derivative designs. Additionally the cost to integrate all the discrete IP blocks used in contemporary SoC designs is also rising. A new report from Semico Research, "SoC Silicon and Software Design Cost Analysis: How Rising Costs Impact SoC Design Starts" states that the design costs for both the silicon and software efforts, will rise at a 43.7% CAGR through 2018.

"Forecasts for SoC silicon and software design costs are given from the 90nm node out through the 7nm node focusing on Advanced Performance Multicore SoCs, Value Multicore SoCs and Basic SoCs" says Rich Wawrzyniak, Senior Analyst. "Categories of effort with definitions for silicon and software designs are established with a forecast given at each node for the three types of SoC silicon. An analysis of 1st Time efforts is also given that shows from 2014 – 2018 the average number of most expensive designs is only 2.3% of all 1st effort SoC designs over that time period."

This recent Semico Research report findings include:

Total SoC design costs increased 89% from the 28nm node to the 14nm node and are expected to increase 32% again at the 10nm node and 45% at the 7nm node.

Total Software design costs increased 74% at the 28nm node and are forecast to show a CAGR of 69% through the 7nm node.

14nm silicon with a $20.00 ASP is required to ship 9.954M units to reach the breakeven point.

The average design cost for all 1st effort SoC types for all effort levels and all process geometries is forecast to be $5.7M in 2014 with a 10.8% CAGR through 2018. Even though design costs are rising quickly at the advanced nodes, the number of low cost designs holds the average cost down.